Daily dose of Yordan (ALCS Preview)

As expected, Yordan and the Astros took care of business in the first round, demolishing the White Sox in a 4 game series (that should have been a clean sweep had the umpires done their job). They'll move on to face the Red Sox in the ALDS after they surprisingly beat the 1 seeded Rays in 4 in the first round. Like the Division Series preview, I'll start by listing all of Boston's starting pitchers and Yordan's matchup against them, before transitioning into a more quick section on the relievers, as well as some final thoughts and key things to look out for in the series.

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Starters:

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Nathan Eovaldi

Eovaldi, Boston's ace this season and the likely game 2 starter, is a pretty interesting player to analyze as a Yordan matchup. He throws an extremely good fastball and has pinpoint accuracy (at least this season) and he strikes out enough people so that his underlying metrics look good as well. That being said, Eovaldi isn't perfect, and as the Rays and Red Sox showed in the postseason, while his command is good his fastball lacks spin, leading to a lot of dingers when he's hit. Yordan's strategy here should be to get a hittable fastball in his sweet spots (low and inside or high and middle middle) and put a good hard swing into it. Unlike most righties, Eovaldi likes to throw his offspeed slider and curve low and outside, meaning that if Yordan goes fishing it will likely be a pretty bad game.

Chris Sale

Every team has that one lefty with a great fastball and electric secondaries, and for the Red Sox, Chris Sale is that guy. At this point in time we're all aware of what Sale is: an elite strikeout pitcher who sometimes deals with command issues and gives up some loud contact but dominates enough to overcome his issues. The Astros have seen Sale plenty of times in both the regular season and playoffs, and in general they've done quite well against him, beating him twice in the 2017 ALDS and forcing him out early with command issues in the 2018 ALCS. Yordan's matchup here will come down to how well he controls the zone early in the count, especially vs Sale's bread and butter outside fastball to lefties. If Yordan goes fishing and swings at some bad fastballs out of the zone, he'll have no chance of connecting vs the junk outside trying to protect the zone, but if he works into a good count and forces Sale to throw either a bad fastball or a slider low and away inside to Yordan, that s**t is going to be crushed.

Eduardo Rodriguez

After years of being a good to great pitcher, Rodriguez had a pretty mediocre year in 2021, regressing to what I'd call merely an ok pitcher who gets by. His fastball isn't really that intimidating and he doesn't really strike out many guys, so I wouldn't be too worried in a potential matchup. He manages to get outs by working the zone and finessing strikes with a variety of different pitches, so this will definitely be a mind game that Yordan has to navigate through. I would personally pinpoint E-Rod's cutter as a point of weakness, he throws it almost 20% of the time but it's mostly inside and high, which Yordan should easily be able to pull for a double down the line. Yordan needs to be aggressive vs Rodriguez early, as unlike the other Boston pitchers he works the zone well and throws quite a bit of hittable pitches, especially fastballs, in the zone early in the count.

Nick Pivetta

We got a very good look at what a locked in Pivetta can do in ALDS game 3, as he came out of the bullpen and pitched extremely effectively vs the Rays, securing a much needed win. However, while this one game may look really intimidating in a vacuum, in the season as a whole I'm not particularly scared of Pivetta. A quick glance at his Baseball Savant page reveals that he walks quite a bit of guys, allows a bunch of hard contact, doesn't strike out many guys, and has multiple offspeed pitches he likes to throw right in Yordan's sweet spots. Considering how good his prior start was I think he's due for some major regression, and I think Yordan will definitely either do damage against his extremely hittable fastball or work a good walk to keep the line moving against him.

Martin Perez

Perez, one of 4 lefties the Red Sox might use in the ALCS roster, is also probably a very good matchup against Yordan, as he doesn't do anything particularly well except for limit walks. He gives up a lot of good contact, doesn't throw an intimidating curve or fastball, and has terrible underlying metrics, so I wouldn't be concerned at all if Yordan faced him. This year was his worst by far in terms of hard hit %, and considering his two most used pitches are a cutter and a sinker, both primarily used to pound the zone, I would be extremely thankful if Yordan got to face him. Like Eduardo Rodriguez, Yordan should be extremely aggressive early verses the hittable fastballs, and he could definitely do a lot of damage on them, especially with runners on.

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Relievers

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Tanner Houck

After a super impressive 2020 season where he had an ERA well under 1 in the shortened season, Houck was good, but not as good as before, in 2021. His underlying metrics were fantastic and he should be an issue vs the Astros, particularly against the righties, but it does look like he throws pretty straight fastballs (19th percentile spin) that get hard often (48th percentile barrel rate). It is important to not that Houck throws his slider actually about as much as his fastball, so while I don't like the matchup Yordan should definitely at least have a chance if he works the count well early.

Matt Barnes

Barnes is one of the funnier pitchers to analyze against Yordan because of his very conflicting skills. On one hand his fastball is great and his chase rate is amazing, but his secondaries are pretty mediocre sometimes and he gives up an unimaginably high amount of contact for someone who is supposed to be the closer. His expected metrics are indeed really good so he is able to limit the damage, but that fastball is straight and will be hit far. It's extremely important that Yordan sit on a fastball here and not swing at Barnes' curve, which he uses often and usually is way out of the zone.

Ryan Brasier

Not sure how he would fare vs Yordan due to his limited sample size in 2021, but similar to Barnes, it looks like he's a two pitch pitcher who struggles with walks but has a really good fastball. Yordan should probably approach him like he does Barnes.

Adam Ottavino

A Yankee reject who turned into a valuable bullpen arm for Boston, Ottavino functions as the yin to Eduardo Rodriguez's yang. Possessing both an electric fastball and curve, Ottavino is great at striking guys out and preventing hard contact, but he has terrible command, as his chase rate (6th percentile) and walk rate (7th percentile) are both well below a pitcher with his other metrics. The Astros got a good look at Ottavino in the 2019 ALCS and did quite well (especially in game 2) by being aggressive on fastballs in the zone but otherwise allowing him to walk into trouble, and that's how Yordan should approach this matchup.

Hansel Robles

He throws hard and has a good fastball but like Ottavino walks too many guys and often creates his own messes. Like Ottavino, Yordan should be really aggressive on hittable fastballs but lay off on everything else and not settle for swinging at a bad pitch low and away.

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I would like to apologize if the quality of this preview isn't as good as the ALDS one, I've been really busy the last few days and just found the time to work on this. Looking at the Red Sox staff though, it definitely feels like they have a lot more balance than the White Sox do. Despite not all having electric high velo fastballs, the Red Sox staff has a lot more junkballers and offspeed dependent pitchers on the staff. Yordan will definitely need to control the zone early and often to avoid swinging at bad pitches, but he also needs to be selectively aggressive against the zone pounders like Eduardo Rodriguez or Martin Perez. Overall I'm not too worried with the matchups other than a few of the guys with good fastballs and offspeed pitches with the command to reliably use them, and considering how well Houston's lefties (and righties) were against these guys in the 2017 ALDS and 2018 ALCS (moreso the first one) I think this will be a pretty fun series that should be handily won.